This invention is directed to methods of detoxification and disposal of hazardous aqueous liquid wastes.
Ground water and waste water around hazardous waste sites contain heavy metals and toxic organic compounds. These contaminants are strongly suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses. Cleanup of the waste requires that these hazardous materials be removed, and the resulting waste products stabilized or detoxified. This is a problem of national concern, and the Environmental Protection Agency, through its Superfund program, has identified hundreds of sites throughout the country, including the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif., which are seriously contaminated with hazardous waste.
Present methods of dealing with these wastes are unsatisfactory. Rather than permanent disposal or detoxification, cleanup of these sites has generally meant redrumming the wastes for burial in a landfill. This only postpones the problem and is no long-term solution. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for a method of permanent detoxification and disposal of hazardous liquid waste in order to permanently resolve the problems presented by sites such as the Superfund sites. Preferably, such a method should be able to be operated directly at the site and to deal with both metal ion contaminants, including ions of heavy metals, and toxic organic contaminants.